It's been a whirlwind rollercoaster few days. We had a fabulous time at tjej's mum's house. There was excellent company, sunshine, an egg tree, an abundance of chocolate and boxes and boxes of South African wine. I learned to play Word Rummykub, and on Sunday night we had a huge game of SCRABBLE [five teams of two people each, ruthlessly pitting wits and dictionaries against one another]. Z and I [Team Foreigner] ended up being the black horses of the game by being second-to-last almost all the way through [despite scoring METEOR as our opening gambit for 26 points], and then getting rid of all our letters in one go in the last round and scoring insane amounts of points through the weird rule that allows you to add the value of everyone else's remaining letters onto your own.

It had been a tense game with people vying for vowels, and the coveted triple word points square, and I drank wine and bemoaned the fact that the plural of Cranium is Crania and not Cranii, and I probably would have been biting my nails had I not been chomping Cheese and Onion crisps in a dedicated manner.

the unexpected last-minute victory was an extremely proud and delighted moment for me because a) Scrabble is almost one of the only things in life which makes me feel ruthlessly competitive b) I don't mind losing to a worthy opponent but winning it was such a sweet drug c) English was not mine or Z's first language, it was his first ever game and my fifth and both of us were still a bit hazy on all the rules.

And now, I'm a hopeless SCRABBLE addict, and I'm having severe withdrawal symptoms because e-scrabble is no more *weeps*, and I used to think I could quit any time I wanted to, but now my dreams are full of words and I keep seeing dictionaries in every shop window.

Other things of note:

1) On returning from holiday I had a good discussion with my mom, and she actually listened and paid attention and acknowledged my point and we are now living in an unprecedented state of mutual respect and harmony.

2) Z and I have covered some important milestones I feel now that we have had both our first holiday and the first fight. Although it wasn't really a fight, more like a discussion in which he made a flyaway comment that I overheard and found upsetting, and then we talked about what I found invalidating about it, and what he meeant and I tried to explain the complexities of female mind and human emotion and he looked a bit lost [*But honey, I'm an eingeneer!*] and I explained that although it is very kind of him to try and cheer me up by telling me things are surely not as bad as all that, it's not a very effective device and doesn't work nearly as well as just giving me a hug and saying *It's going to be all right*. And he said I'm sorry, and I said I'm sorry and we both said It's All right .

But still we parted a bit awkwardly, and things might have stayed on that odd, off-key note had Z not discovered that he couldn't get into his house because he had in fact forgotten his keys in his jacket in Bristol and I convinced him to come back to mine and stay there rather than sleep in his car like a hobo.

And at night my heart melted at the comforting familiarity of his body next to mine and I snuggled in the circle of his arms and allowed warmth and peace and love to flow from me and heal the hairline crack between us.

3) Z met my parents who were very welcoming and lovely and gave him wine to drink and they love him and he doesn't seem traumatised, so all is well, although his offer to sleep on the sofa shocked my mother and amused me

This morning we are all back at our respective places of work, except being homeless and down on his luck and clean clothes he went to his wearing one of the only t-shirts I have which would fit him - A white Hungarian Airlines t-shirt my little brother had given me years ago with a big yellow heart and I Love You written in uneven script on the back. It makes me chortle whenever I think of it, although thankfully he had a clean shirt at my house to wear over it, so I'm the only one chortling I should think.

4) Z is driving to Bristol and back tonight after work to pick up his jacket and his house keys and I'm going with him because I feel sorry for him and I'm worried about him driving such a long way and will feel better knowing I can be there to keep him company and prod him if he starts to doze off.

That's such a sweet post. (N***'s got a boyfriend, N***'s got a boyfriend). He looks very sweet and slightly strange (you know in the way that I love). And your photos are lovely.

Thank you :) He is very sweet, especially in a very Sagittarian way - screw ups [his own and other people's] taken on board with lots of good will and humour. He's got a very Taurus Ascendant body - short and solid - he's very muscular and compact with a lot of upper body strength. And his eyes keep changing colours from blue to green and back to blue and grey which keeps me entertained.

I'm sad to hear that e-scrabble is no more. Seems like you'll never get a chance to put me back in my place.